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By the end of 2011, I would have read 200 books for the year. I have always been a voracious reader, but this year I have outdone myself. Despite this, I still feel like a slacker because quite a few people who I know are averaging between four to five books each week. I didn’t read as many classics as I’d like. I find that I struggle to read some of the classics because the story unfolds so slowly.

I try to read books from many genres, and even if it’s fiction, I find that I always take away a lesson or two. I have also noticed that some of the same themes emerging, and I’d like to share them with you.

1. Persistence pays.
2. Where you start out in life does not determine where you’ll end up.
3. Forgive those who hurt you.
4. Let go of anger.
5. You can accomplish a lot more than you think.
6. Take time to enjoy life, the journey is everything.
7. Spend time with family and friends.
8. When others criticize you, instead of immediately being defensive, honestly ask yourself if there is merit to the criticism. If there is, immediately make the changes.
9. Emulate the good qualities you admire in others and check yourself for their bad ones.
10. Things always take a longer to accomplish than you first thought.
11. You accomplish a lot more when you collaborate with people whose skills complement yours.
12. Fall down seven times get up eight.

I’d like to leave you with a quote by Charles Wesley and John Wesley, and a poem by Portia Nelson to reflect on.

“Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can

To all the people you can

As long as ever you can!”

By Charles and John Wesley

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

Chapter 1

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost … I am helpless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I am in the same place.

But it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in … it’s a habit.

My eyes are open.

I know where I am.

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

Chapter 4

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

Chapter 5

I walk down another street.

~ Portia Nelson ~

(There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk)

You Tube Video of Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

If you cannot view the video please click here.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

YouTube Video Credit: Uploaded by WildcatTech on May 11, 2009

I have read a lot of really good books this year (2011 Books for Mentoring), and because I am at active reader, I always learn at least one thing from the books that I read. This is the time of year when you find the various lists for the best books of the year. I already gave you the list of some of the books that I have thoroughly enjoyed. But, I have also been thinking about which book was most impactful and practical for me.

And the winner is…

Drum roll please!

Cover via Amazon

…How to Read Literature Like  Professor by Thomas Foster. When I first started to read How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I thought it was going to be very boring and academic, but I was pleasantly surprised. The book is essentially a guide on how to read to get the most from what you are reading. Foster recommends that while you are reading to constantly ask yourself, “Where have I seen this before?” And you should also question what you are reading in the text. Since reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor, I now read very differently. And I pay even more attention than I usually do while reading.

Additionally, I ask more questions about the significance of events occurring in the book. If a character has a heart ailment, I ask myself why the author allowed that to happen. If there is water in a scene, I ponder about the significance, whether it’s a cleansing, or a rebirth and so on. Having read How to Read Literature Like a Professor I am a far more discerning reader, which deepens my understanding of the books I read.

Because of this new questioning while reading, I found out that The Hunger Games Trilogy was loosely based on the Greek myth of Theseus. The protagonist, 16-year old Katniss Everdeen is viewed as a modern day Theseus.

And another unexpected benefit occurred during the summer while I was researching and writing many Profiles in Wisdom. Another question I have been asking myself as a result of having read How to Read Literature Like a Professor is where have I heard of this person before?

For instance, Ada Lovelace was the first computer programmer and she worked with Charles Babbage the father of computers. Lovelace was the daughter of Lord Byron and Lady Byron. Lady Byron was an abolitionist who became great friends with Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. At one point in her life, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was her neighbour. Beecher Stowe met with Abraham Lincoln who remarked, “So this is the little woman who wrote the book that made this big war,” in reference to the American Civil War. Through Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace met Mary Fairfax Somerville who became one of her mentors. Mary Somerville was also one of the people who American astronomer Maria Mitchell had letters of introduction to when she visited Europe. Lord Byron made several references to Sappho, one of the greatest female poets who ever lived.

It’s uncanny how many connections were among the people who I researched, and it wasn’t planned on my part – it just happened – and it strengthened my knowledge on the people who I profiled. As I upload the many profiles I have already written, you will see the many connections for yourself. That’s what reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor will do for you.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor is a book that you will constantly refer to because it is packed with so much useful information. This is the book that has had the biggest impact on me in 2011. Of all the books that you’ve read in 2011, which one has had the most impact, and is the most practical? If you haven’t read Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, pick up a copy today and click here to read my review. How to Read Literature Like a Professor makes a great book for mentoring.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Some book links are affiliate links.

In the recent mentoring survey by the social network LinkedIn, a large percent of women reported that the reason they didn’t have a mentor was because no one had asked them. This is the first in a series that will assist you in taking control of your career by creating your own personal mentoring program. Instead of waiting to be asked if you would like to be mentored, you will learn how to take the initiative in finding appropriate mentors for yourself.

It may seem weird to you that there is such a thing as a do-it-yourself mentoring program. We have been conditioned to think of mentoring in a certain way, in a traditional way, where someone, usually at a senior level, advises and guides another person at a more junior level. Before you create a mentoring program for yourself, first you have to understand what mentoring is, as well as determine what your true needs are, so that you seek appropriate mentors and tap into relevant networks.

The Story behind Mentoring

In Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, when Odysseus, the Greek King of Ithaca left to fight in the 10-year Trojan War, he left his old friend Mentor in charge of his household and young son Telemachus. The real Mentor is not mentioned that much in the story; however, the immortal Goddess Athena, disguises herself as Mentor and encourages Telemachus to stand up to the men who were courting his mother Penelope.

Athena also encourages Telemachus to go abroad to seek word about what has happened to his father, who had now been away for almost 20 years. Additionally, Athena acts as a mentor to Odysseus as he goes through the many trials during his return journey to his palace in Ithaca after the war.

In more recent times, Freddie Laker mentored Sir Richard Branson, Roger Corman mentored Martin Scorcese and Ron Howard, Michelle Robinson mentored Barack Obama and former Xerox CEO Anne M. Mulcahy mentored Ursula Burns to take over the reins. (For some interesting mentor-protégé pairings click here for an extensive list on Peer Resources).

Definition of Mentoring

The modern usage of mentor – trusted friend, counsellor or teacher – first appeared in François Fénelon’s Les Aventures de Telemaque in 1699, Wikipedia (2009).  Dictionary.com has a similar definition for a mentor, “Wise and trusted counsellor or teacher, an influential senior sponsor or supporter.”  And Wikipedia notes that “Mentors provide their expertise to less-experienced individuals to help them advance their careers, enhance their education.”

However, the concept of mentoring has been evolving over the past few years, and it’s no longer a traditional one-to-one or relationship. Mentoring is conversations, interactions, support and other networks and our relationships with others. Mentoring can occur in moments (profound conversation you have with others, or the interviews I conduct with others), over a period of time (mentoring for a specific period of time) or even over a lifetime (parents are often great mentors). Once you embrace the broader meaning of mentoring and mentors, it’s much easier for you to create a mentoring program that’s just right for you.

In addition to the above, there is also a new kind of mentoring – invisible mentoring. An invisible mentor is a “unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from a distance.” You may call these people role models, but they are also your invisible mentors. The invisible mentor concept may be unfamiliar to you, but in Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, which was first published in 1937, the author writes about what he calls “invisible counsellors”.  According to Hill, “I followed the habit of reshaping my own character by trying to imitate the nine men whose lives and life works had been most impressive to me… Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Paine, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Luther Burbank, Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie… I studied the records of their lives with painstaking care.”

Step One in Creating your Mentoring Program

Before you get down to the nitty-gritty of creating your mentoring program, you first have to understand yourself and your needs, the why behind wanting a mentor. Here is your first action to take.

Mini Mentoring Needs Analysis

1. What are your vision, mission and purpose in life?
2. In the next three years, where would you like to be in your personal and professional life? Please frame your responses in the form of personal and professional goals for each of the five life areas – Economic/Financial, Social, Health/Fitness, Business/Career and Personal. Have no more than 10 goals and assign timelines to them for what you want to accomplish in the first, second and third year.
3. Think about your professional goals, what gaps exist between where you are now, to where you would like to be in the next three years?
4. What actions do you have to take to fill those gaps?
5. What knowledge do you have to acquire to fill those gaps?
6. Who are the experts that you can learn from, and what are their areas of expertise?
7. Of the experts that you identified, which ones do you respect and are respected by others?
8. If trusted friends could introduce you to five people who would be ideal mentors for you, would you choose? Would your ideal mentors be similar to the experts you identified above?
9. The five ideal mentors that you choose in the above question, what qualities and traits do they possess, which accounted for you choosing them?
10. Who are some people within your organizations, and other networks who have the same goals as you do? (These people could be potential members for mentoring groups that you create).
11. At the end of a mentoring relationship, what would success for you look like?

In the next episode of the DIY Mentoring Program, we’ll delve further into the process.

I am thinking of creating a digital product that fleshes out the DIY Mentoring Program. What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Related articles

• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Three (theinvisiblementor.com)
• Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program, Episode Two (theinvisiblementor.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Recently, I attended a book signing event at Indigo Books and Music where Walter Isaacson talked about his biography of Steve Jobs. Indigo’s CEO Heather Reisman did an excellent job interviewing Isaacson, and the audience got some deep insights into why Jobs was the way he was.

Isaacson remarked that kindness was not among Jobs’ top 100 traits – words he used to describe him include: Petulant, artistic, emotional, genius, mean, dual-personality, intuitive, control freak, liked to have his own way, had the ability to engender loyalty. If someone were eulogizing you, what would your top 100 traits be?

I’ve been thinking that I’m not always as grateful as I could be because there are times when I take things for granted. I also asked myself if I make the most of what I already have. Each of us is unique in our own way. We have talents that others don’t have, but are we using them well? Are we using them to serve others? When someone offers us their talents, are we gracious in accepting them, or are we dismissive? I am writing this post for you and for me.

Since attending the Isaacson event, I have been thinking how I can be of better service, and be gracious (gracious is one word that Isaacson used to describe Bill Gates) in the process. On The Invisible Mentor blog, I have added a page called The Mentors. On that page, I have placed all the Interviews and Profiles in Wisdom in one place where they can be easily accessed. The intent of The Invisible Mentor blog is to provide mentoring in a non-traditional way. I feature interviews I personally conducted, and profiles of wise people who have died, and that’s my unique way of connecting modern and ancient wisdom.

If there are blogs and other websites that you frequent and print their content, to strip away all that extraneous stuff so you don’t waste paper, download the Readability tool bar extension and click on it before you print. You’ll also notice that if you go directly to The Invisible Mentor blog, you’ll find a Print Friendly button at the end of each post. After you have used Readability to strip away whatever I have in the two outside columns you can print a clean copy of any post. In the mean time, I’ll research to see if there is a way to do that in one step.

Are you making the most of what you have, and how are you using it to serve the world?

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Thor Muller certainly thinks that you can plan serendipity!

Thor Muller, CTO and co-founder of the firm Get Satisfaction recently gave a talk, The Practice Planned Serendipity as part of the Unfinished Business series at Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCADU). Before we dive into what Muller said during his talk, first let’s look at what serendipity means.

The Meaning of Serendipity

Horace Walpole, English art historian and politician born in the early 18^th century coined the word serendipity. Walpole who loved to write letters was also known as man of letters. In a letter to Thomas Mann he said that he coined the word serendipity from the Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. In the tale, the heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.”

Image via Wikipedia

As with many things, words often lose part of their meaning, or the meaning is completely changed over a period of time. The way that Walpole used serendipity, sagacity was an important aspect of the definition, which is the “ability to link together apparently innocuous facts to come to a valuable conclusion.” According to Wikipedia, “Serendipity is a propensity for making fortunate discoveries while looking for something unrelated.”

In Muller’s talk, he indicated that serendipity occurs when chance interacts with creativity. Therefore it’s possible to plan the conditions for serendipity to take place.

Getting to Serendipity

There are eight ways that anyone can experience serendipity in a planned way.

Collision: Serendipity requires motion. You cannot have serendipity without collision. Get out there – run into more people and participate in more events.

Preparation: Prepare your mind for serendipity and there are three ways to do so.

1. Obsessive Curiosity
2. Arrest an Exception: Have dogged determination. Hang on until you figure “it” out.
3. Forget What you Know to be True: Nothing is sacred

Divergence: Be ready to divert from the original plan. Take another direction. There are two ways to divert.

1. Branch-out: Take a different fork in the road. Branch-out from another branch, explore the possibilities.
2. Spread Seeds: Spin off new components.

Commitment: You achieve serendipity when you stick to it, you are unwilling to divert from your cause. You know what your mission is and you adhere to it.

Connection: You run into the right people because of your network of connections – because you know the right people.

Porosity: You move the centre of gravity from within your company out to the customers and magic can happen.

Activation: We create the space for serendipity to occur. For instance, there is a certain individual that you’d like to meet, plan on how you can meet her. You could have a party and invite people who know her and encourage them to bring her along. So you create the space for serendipity to take place by having the party.

Additional Information on Serendipity

The Three Princes of Serendip, Part One

Making Science by Serendipity. A review of Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber’s The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity

The Three Princes of Serendip and the Merchant 

Now that I have attended Thor Muller’s lecture on The Practice Planned Serendipity, I am ready to test the waters.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.